Indexing or catch mechanisms in chop saws serve to determine miter adjustments of the saw blade for prescribed miter angles, so that the adjustment of these miter angles is simplified. For this purpose, it is known to employ in a chop saw a ball-spring arrangement, wherein the spring and the ball are inserted into a bore in the surface of a base plate, on which the turntable is rotatably mounted, adjacent the circumferential surface of the turntable. The spring presses the ball against the outer circumferential surface of the turntable. Cavities are present in this circumferential surface and into which the ball can engage, so as to effect indexing of the turntable relative to the base plate.
This arrangement is comparatively complicated to manufacture, because it not only requires the construction of recesses in the external circumferential surface of the turntable, but also the production of a bore in the base plate to accommodate the spring and ball. Also, it involves a comparatively complicated assembly step whereby the spring and ball have to be inserted into this bore, and the turntable then assembled to the base plate in a manner to prevent the ball from coming out of the bore. Furthermore, the catch positions obtainable are not always stable, so that in use a misadjustment can easily occur.